Pope Francis Coming to Juárez

All of this area is preparing for a visit from Pope Francis to Juarez, Mexico on February 17.  Training is happening for becoming part of the contingent of 80,000 people who will form a 25-mile-long chain to help protect the Pope during his visit.   Plans are being made for school, business and road closings.  The front page of the paper has had articles every day about the preparations.

It is predicted that the Pope will include in his visit a symbolic gesture such as a visit to the border fence that separates the United States and Mexico.  I wrote about this fence in the last blog.  In a Commentary in the El Paso Times today, Ouisa D. Davis, an attorney at law in El Paso, speaks of the implications of this visit for this area and the entire country:

“It is right that he should come to Juárez, the Ellis Island of the southern U.S. border.  It is through our region that families are reunited despite our broken immigration system.  It is through the desert Southwest that thousands of men, women and children have sacrificed their lives along the journey.

It is right that he comes at this moment, when U.S. political and social discourse is filled with hate and disrespect for immigrants and refugees to remind us that humanity is one, united by our common God, no matter our form of worship.”

As this entire region prepares for this visit and its significance, we at Loretto/Nazareth are experiencing changes in the flow of immigrants.  Yesterday we welcomed only four new people.  The day before there were 10.  The second shelter that was opened at St. Ignatius when we had 80 – 100 people coming every day has been closed for a few weeks. Each day we wait to see how many refugees will cross our threshold and from what countries they will come.  In addition to El Salvador, Guatemala and Brazil, we have had people from Nigeria, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Some of them have been Muslims and we have had to prepare different food to meet their dietary needs. 

No one is clear about why the ebb and flow of immigrants varies so much.  Is it the changes that are happening in U.S. policy?  Is it the weather?  Is it what the smugglers are saying to them about the right time to travel?  All we can do is stand ready to provide them with the warmth and welcome, safety and security, food and beverage which they have not always experienced in the detention centers where they were held before they come to us. 

Thank goodness for the generosity of the people of this region who are so faithful in bringing food and clothing as well as offering their time to volunteer in any way they can.  Thank goodness for your generosity in supporting this effort.  May the Pope’s visit remind us, in the words of Ouisa D. Davis, that we cannot be a nation that “suffers from a culture of indifference which allows us to look the other way and live in bubbles of ignorance as we encourage the culture of death to invade our land and social structure.”   Rather, we are a region, and I might say a nation, “desperately in need of reminders of how to live lives of mercy and compassion.” May the Pope’s visit be a blessing to this region and its people as well as to our whole country. 

    

Pope Francis coming to Juárez, Mexico

Sister Elaine and our Pope Francis!

The whole community with Pope Francis!